Knowledgebase

Managing Your Brand On The Internet

The internet gives your business a whole new world of advertising and marketing possibilities, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s easy for you to get the word out about your company, but it’s also easy for other people to spread the word - both good and bad. In this article, we’re going to look at some strategies for managing your brand on the internet.

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that anyone can say anything about your company online, and it can be difficult (if not impossible) to get rid of it - even if it’s not true at all.

When someone else comes along a week, a month or even years down the road and searches for information about your business, they can come across these comments. If you haven’t responded to them or made an effort to engage those people - especially in the case of bad feedback - they will have nothing to go on except what other people are saying.

No doubt, you’d prefer to have some input into these conversations so you can at least make an effort to rectify any complaints as well as express your thanks for positive feedback.

There are several ways you can stay on top of what people are saying about your business on the internet:

- Set up Google Alerts for your company name
- Maintain a presence on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook
- Give your customers as many ways to contact you as possible

Google Alerts are a service provided by Google that will send you an email whenever Google indexes a page that has a certain phrase or words on it. By setting up a Google Alert for your company name, you’ll get an email whenever Google finds a new web page where someone mentions you.

Once you’re aware of the page, you can visit it and see what is being said, and try to respond if it’s necessary.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are growing incredibly fast. Facebook alone has over 800 million active users. Chances are good that many of your customers - current and future - are using the site.

By maintaining a presence for your business, you’ll give people an outlet to interact with you, and you can keep an eye on the things your customers are saying about your business.

On top of these, you should have a website of your own, a Google Places listing and other places where people can reach you. The more you have, the better because not everyone wants to use the same method for getting in touch with you.